Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 12:41 pmPosts: 14118Location: From some place in this area...

Mr_Green_Genes wrote:

It will certainly relocate religion on a wider context. But also it will raise the issue of why mainstream science has ignored these real, tangible phenomena for so long...

Finally the Holy Grail for this thread:

Frank discusses the potential of Jimi HendrixThen the Martin Luther King Robert Kennedy assassinations as political intrigueHe also lends his opinion on the origins of UFOsHe describes the current US government(1990) as a "CANDY COATED dictatorship":

Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 12:41 pmPosts: 14118Location: From some place in this area...

Damn!

Hacker loses extradition appeal

British hacker Gary McKinnon has lost his latest High Court bid to avoid extradition to the United States.

US authorities want to try the 43-year-old, from Wood Green, north London, for breaking into US military and Nasa computers in 2001 and 2002.Mr McKinnon admits hacking, but denies it was malicious or that he caused damage costing $800,000 (£487,000).Whether or not he can appeal to the UK Supreme Court will be decided at a later date, Lord Justice Burnton said.He said it was a matter which should be dealt with "as expeditiously as possible".

'Lawful and proportionate'

Glasgow-born Mr McKinnon had challenged refusals by the home secretary and the director of public prosecutions (DPP) to try him in the UK.Home Secretary Alan Johnson has insisted he has no power to demand the trial take place in the UK.The DPP refused to order a UK trial, saying the bulk of the evidence was located in the US and Mr McKinnon's actions were directed against the US military infrastructure. He had also asked the court to rule on whether his Asperger's Syndrome meant he could not be extradited to the US.His lawyers argued extradition was "unnecessary, avoidable and disproportionate" and had not taken place in other cases.But, in a 41-page ruling, the judges said extradition was "a lawful and proportionate response to his offending".Dismissing the challenge as "unarguable", Lord Justice Burnton said: "The fact that different decisions were made by the DPP in other cases does not assist the claimant: Other cases, different facts."Mr McKinnon faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted in the US of what prosecutors have called "the biggest military computer hack of all time".He has always insisted he was looking for classified documents on UFOs which he believed the US authorities had suppressed.Speaking outside the High Court, his mother, Janis Sharp, said her son - who did not attend court - had been "naive enough to admit to computer misuse without having a lawyer and without one being present"."We are heartbroken. If the law says it's fair to destroy someone's life in this way then it's a bad law."

She said she feared for his health."He's very ill, he's got really bad chest pains, it's affected him emotionally, mentally, every way, he's terrified," she said. Mr McKinnon accessed 97 government computers belonging to organisations including the US Navy and Nasa.In February the Crown Prosecution Service refused to bring charges against Mr McKinnon in the UK.The decision followed a ruling last October by then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to allow his extradition.Mr McKinnon has already appealed unsuccessfully to the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights and his latest judicial reviews in the High Court are likely to be his last chance.

His lawyers say the authorities have not given proper consideration to his Asperger's Syndrome, which could have "disastrous consequences," including suicide, if he was to be extradited.They argued he was "eccentric" rather than malicious and should be tried on lesser charges in the UK to protect his mental health.The National Autistic Society said it was "disappointed" and "angry" over the decision."The NAS has campaigned hard for his extradition to be reconsidered in the light of his diagnosis of Asperger syndrome," chief executive Mark Lever said.

"People with Asperger syndrome are often far more vulnerable than initial appearances would suggest, frequently isolated, often bullied and sadly many experience severe mental health problems if they do not get the right support."We are extremely disappointed that the High Court has decided to continue with Gary's extradition despite these concerns."Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: "This is very disappointing news."People are right to be extremely concerned about our extradition arrangements."This is a case where there is a clear argument for it to be tried in this country, and our system should take health issues into account before considering deportation. I hope lessons will be learned."

Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 12:41 pmPosts: 14118Location: From some place in this area...

The Hopeh Incident refers to a UFO that was supposedly spotted and photographed over Hopeh, China in 1942. Masujiro Kiru had found the photograph while looking through his father's China Campaign (before World War II) photo album. His father had purchased the photograph from a Tianjin street photographer. Some sources claim that the photographer was later identified to be an American man on duty in that region, who thought the object in question was a hat. Other skeptics identify the object as a bird.

_________________The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

In the two years since the French made their top-secret UFO files public, more European nations have declassified documents. But the majority remain tight-lipped with a few refusing to even acknowledge the phenomenon.

On August 4, 1990, an unidentified flying object was seen hovering in daylight near the town of Pitlochry in Scotland. Eyewitnesses stated that the diamond shaped object hung in the sky for about 10 minutes as two military aircraft made a series of low-level passes near it.

Almost three weeks later on August 24, hundreds of tourists and local residents observed formations of luminous spheres for over 30 minutes in the sky near the German city of Greifswald, located close to the coast of the Baltic Sea.

In November of that year, a triangular object was seen by numerous witnesses passing over Saint-Germain in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France. The object moved slowly at low altitude and emitted beams of light towards the ground before eventually speeding away.

All three events have many common factors, most notably that each one remains unexplained to this day. But one - the Greifswald incident - is the odd one out. This is because official documentation on the Pitlochry and Saint-Germain sightings collected by British and French governmental agencies are now available to the public after France and the UK took decisions to open up their UFO files.

Some of the truth is out there

The British and French governments are among a select few in Europe to have declassified previously top secret files and experts believe that, while they may currently be in the minority in revealing their documents, they are certainly not alone in having recorded sightings.

"The French released their UFO files through their space agency in 2007, Britain is mid-way through a 3-4 year program of revealing theirs under the Freedom of Information Act, while the Norwegians and the Danes have already released some files as have the Italians," Nick Pope, a former investigator of UFO reports and sightings with the British MoD and an expert on the topic, told Deutsche Welle. "The UFO phenomenon is a global phenomenon; there are unquestionably sightings all around the world so all European countries will certainly have had UFO sightings."

Germany is one of the many European countries which have not declassified their UFO files. In fact, the German government refuses to even admit that it has any UFO files despite the fact that independent organizations record, on average, between 50 and 100 sightings a year in the skies over Germany.

Germany among those remaining silent on UFO phenomena

"Germany has a high level of UFO sightings," Robert Fleischer, the coordinator for the German Initiative for Exopolitics, told Deutsche Welle.

He said that, since 1974, over 500 so-called "real" UFO cases - reported sightings that, after careful consideration by specialized experts, cannot be related to any conventional information - have been recorded.

"However, there has never been any official recognition by the German government relating to UFOs or UFO activity," Fleischer added. "So if the Germans were to open any files relating to UFOs, all we would find out is that they pass all their information to the Americans."

Most UFO cases reported over Germany were only revealed when US files were made public. Germany's lack of UFO research is possibly due to the fact that "the US assumed that role after the end of World War II, although the Germans have never officially acknowledged this or any interest in UFOs," he said.

European governments aware of unexplained sightings

So what do the files made public by the likes of France and Britain actually tell the public about the UFO phenomenon in Europe?

"What these files don't say is almost more important than what they do say," said Nick Pope. "What they don't say is that we have proof that any of these things are extra-terrestrial. What they do say is that European governments have consistently had these things reported to them, sometimes by reliable witnesses such as police officers and pilots."

Most of the sightings turn out to have conventional explanations, like the misidentification of all kinds of aeronautical and astronomical phenomena, but most European governments which have conducted investigations have found that about five percent of the cases cannot be explained, added Pope.

While neither Nick Pope nor Robert Fleischer could guarantee that the initial European declassifications would eventually pressure all EU governments into opening their files, they both agreed that the revelations made public by those countries willing to divulge information could only improve research into a phenomenon that they believe is an issue for every nation.

Partial declassification giving subject more credibility

"I think this disclosure will lead to a greater understanding of the UFO phenomenon," said Pope. "The release of these files shows that governments do have information and if they liaise with each other, we may get further down the line to explaining this mystery because they all have a little piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately liaison is not common in this field."

However, the declassification may be discrediting some common UFO myths and lend credibility to sighting claims.

"When you read about sightings in governmental files from all around Europe with testimonies from military pilots, commercial airline pilots, and radar reports which show these things performing maneuvers and speeds that are way beyond our capabilities, it changes the nature of the debate from an underground anomaly to a mainstream issue," said Pope,"and that has to be a good thing."

As a matter of mild interest to which description you posted above does this photo belong? The object shown in the picture would seem to be neither diamond-shaped, nor triangular, nor completely spherical.I honestly hadn't seen the Hopeh Incident photo before I posted on the "random photos" thread. It's lucky the guy who took the photo didn't get the job of naming these objects - somehow "Flying Hats" doesn't contain the same elements of mystery and danger that "Flying Saucers" does.

_________________"I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly."

Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 12:41 pmPosts: 14118Location: From some place in this area...

The pic is clealy from journalistic archieves and not related to the cases told in the article. The article is one more pice of disclosure, which is gradually making its way to the mainstream. Keep tuned. Maybe 2010 is the year will we make contact...

I just want to look the face of all pseudo-skeptical deniers when it hits the fan...

_________________The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

Joined: Mon Jul 13, 2009 10:11 amPosts: 533Location: in a small town someplace i used to be

You guys...if you promise not to tell anyone, I'll tell you a secret. I am really a shapeshifting reptilian alien here on earth to study Zappa forumers. i get to decide who gets anal probed or not (not lookin too good for you trendy). Excuse me while I whip this out..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZJp-P5XJsg.

I believe that there is another force on this planet whether it is aliens (not them) or not I'm not sure.Does that make sense?

You may want to read a book by Jacques Vallée, Dimensions: A Casebook of Alien Contact, his hypothesis is that the beings being reported in modern times have the same MO as beings that have been reported through history. He makes insightful comparisons to angels, demons, fairies, elves, and a host of historical visitations. He concludes these beings may be a lot closer to home than interstellar travelers due to their frequent and continuous presence, they may be dimensional interlopers. He rules out the medical sampling notion due to the fact that they seem to have been doing this work for centuries if not thousands of years and would have to be the worst doctors in the Universe if they have not been able to conclude their research by now.

The book goes into great scientific detail, as he is a research scientist and has been involved in UFO research since the 1950’s, he was the scientist that was the model for the French scientist in the “Close Encounters” movie. The book is worth reading just for his in-depth study of the “Our lady of Fatima” sightings, which when looked at closely were similar to many UFO events, as well as the culminating “miracle of the sun” witnessed by a crowd of 70,000 people. His research demonstrates that the events started much earlier than most reports show and that the finale “miracle’ witnessed had a much different appearance from other angles and distances than the main crowd.

Recommended to all who have not read this as a must read regardless of your position on these subjects.

...most European governments which have conducted investigations have found that about five percent of the cases cannot be explained...

Well I'm afraid I am a bit of a sceptic, but let me make the following point all the same. If 95% of all sightings can be explained, doesn't that mean that considerably less than 5% (assuming that photos/film were not taken in every case) of the photos of UFOs posted here are of genuine UFOs, i.e. the vast majority are photos of natural, explicable phenomena, or even, dare I say it, fakes?

_________________"I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly."

Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2002 12:41 pmPosts: 14118Location: From some place in this area...

"Fakes" are included in this alleged figure of 95% of sightings that 'can be explained'. Those 'inexplicable' sightings would include cases where there was no mundane/natural explanation, many times involving highly trained personnel such as plane pilots, and hard data such as radar and visual confirmation, markings on the ground and etc. This kind of mythical 5% figure comes from project Blue Book and alike partial govt initiatives to study UFO as a threat to national security. Actually some figures go up to 23% of sightings cannot be prosaically explained.

Don't blame yourself for being 'skeptical'. Remember:

Quote:

Your mind is totally controlledIt has been stuffed into my mold

I am sorry, but it is totally true for everyone of us... The UFO/ET case is not a case of lack of scientific evidence and tangible data availability. It is a story of the active suppression of information and knowledge by obscure trans-international political forces on planet Earth for more than 50 years now.

We are clearly in the middle of an overture/disclosure process, with the subject being fortuitously being introduced in the mainstream media without the load of the ridicule that comes along with the subject... Some within this study circle are saying Obama will disclose this information soon. That is a testable hypothesis, lets wait and see....

Anyone truly interested in philosophy should take their time to try to navigate through the absurd ocean of true and disinformation cases, legends and folklore surrounding the theme. Not only because it is exciting from an existence point of view and the new perspective it ads on life and the human condition on the universe, but also because it should be a matter of subject of why and how could something so extraordinary be kept away from the people and from the almighty Science an its army of intelligent scientists for so long...

_________________The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true Art and Science. - Albert Einstein

Certainly, we are all controlled, more or less by the media and the government and I suppose that life consists, in part, of negotiating a narrow path between believing one thing claimed by the media/government and disbelieving another.

However, I remember the reaction of my own, dear brother, (who I respect and like a lot and who is a 'believer') to that fake film of alien dissections that it was claimed were undertaken after the Roswell incident. The yellow press and even the broadsheets presented this as ultimate proof of the existence of alien visitors and my brother believed it too. It therefore seems to me that 'believers' will sometimes also grab onto any information that supports their view, too (c.f. von Däniken, who is a charlatan, as far as I am concerned and whom my brother found trustworthy for quite a long time). In fact it would seem to me that the media reports postively about most alien sightings (i.e. they would like us to believe that we are being visited by aliens and I think they always did), but this is only my own, subjective, impression and is not based on empirical data.

I am, in general, scepitical (and scepiticism is not the same as denial) about such sightings, however that does not mean I would deny the existence of other life forms in the universe; it is a statistical certainty, as far as I can make out.

Nevertheless, I do a) doubt the practability of such a journey b) ask what the point might be c) am of the opinion that there are lot of people who would like it to be true. This last point is particularly dangerous when looking for explanations for the unexplained.

All the same, 'Flight 714' is my favourite Tintin.

_________________"I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly."

The statistical certainty of there being 'other life' with all the galaxies and stars, and that a lot of people don't want to deal with...is curiously juxtaposed in my mind with the widespread 'need' by a lot of people of there being extraterrestrial life.Even if there was no evidence here of something else from somewhere else, the brains of fellow humans want there to be such evidence. We want to think that they ARE there. Before Jules Verne, say, or the advent of 'science fiction' there were many who told tales of 'other-than-human' anthropomorphic beings with other greater powers in every culture around the world. The gods, demons, daemoni, djinni dragons and a whole host of Asian characters as well as the devils that Christianity would stumble upon and try to cover back up.I think it's really interesting just in psychological areas of study or research that even without awareness of 'outer space' , like in the 19th century, people still needed those ideas. But now with the advancement of space exploration and the popular media giving us stories of interacting with 'other than human life forms', we have all new names and shapes and sizes we can assign acc to our imaginations. Just stories, but what a rich field of stuff it seems us humans have always generated.If an argument could be made then, that we ALWAYS make up *this kind of stuff* , then WHY?ANDHow much do we manifest what our minds invent. How much of reality is just made up stuff? On a a perception level, many might argue, all of it is. So then ...Who am I talking to again?

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